Stand-Up for Roadless

To inventory areas devoid of roads and related development might seem odd to those not spending their days focused on the care and feeding of the places we all get to enjoy and benefit from, but an inventory was needed. The Forest Service had been in a frenzy since the advent of the modern vehicle(Se abre en una ventana nueva) of punching roads everywhere, primarily to facilitate timber harvesting(Se abre en una ventana nueva). The Forest Service, an agency born early in the 20th century to care for watersheds and a sustainable trove of forest products, had become the nation's number one road builder. The Forest Service today manages a system of over 380,000 miles of roads(Se abre en una ventana nueva); a number 8 times the total number of miles in the country's Interstate System.

The inventories (RARE and RARE II) did very little to quiet the hunger for more roads and more clear-cut forests. An agency that had given rise to the wilderness idea, under the leadership of Aldo Leopold, Bob Marshall and Arthur Carhart, was now moving as fast as they could to disqualify acres for possible inclusion to the emerging system of wilderness areas. Roadless Acres were still quite literally on the chopping block. Putting an end to the seemingly relentless drumbeat for more roads would require more than just recognizing an inventory of acreage.  

One reason to stop building roads in rare and remote places might have been the potential damage to unique ecosystems, but that reasoning was not enough to stem the tide of an ever-more-divided system of National Forest lands. Local decisions were piling up with more proposed roads, even as the agency was failing to keep up with the roads they had already built. Failing roads were creating significant erosion issues as new miles were added to the system, and the total number of acres left free from the heavy hand of development were dwindling. Into this dilemma stepped Mike Dombeck.  

Mike Dombeck was the Chief of the United States Forest Service from 1997 to 2001. Chief Dombeck saw the threats to landscapes, the burdensome protracted legal fights, and the failing Forest Service Road System and said simply “stop”. He instructed the agency to stop proposing and building new roads in the 58 million acres of areas that RARE II identified. His internal memo would start an unprecedented public engagement campaign to wrestle with how to treat these remaining roadless acres while they took a break from infiltrating them with more dozer cuts. That process included meetings in every corner of the country, millions of comments from the public, and a scientific review of what roads do to impact the forest. The agency took the time to create a new rule around their policy regarding acres like the ones I experienced as that 10-year-old boy. That rule—the Roadless Rule—has stood since it was put in place by the United States Department of Agriculture, the Department in which the Forest Service resides, in January of 2001.

That rule has held a pattern of ever-expanding  road construction at bay for a quarter of a century. It has kept critical habitat intact so that the non-human world has a chance. It has kept us humble when we are always convinced that we can “manage” our way out of a predicament. A simple rule with huge impact: let's not build more roads where there are none. Let's not build roads in landscapes that resist roads.

Since that hike in the Black Mountains, I have spent a lifetime hiking in, stewarding, and fighting for roadless acres, from the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska, to the Jewel Basin here in my backyard of the Flathead National Forest of northwest Montana.  

The Roadless Rule has stood to protect 58 million acres. The rule, while having a clear definition—no more new roads in defined roadless areas—is also filled with nuance and flexibility. Local Rangers have tools at their disposal to address forest health and forest fire risk. Those Rangers are not precluded from providing a range of recreational opportunities in those roadless acres. The limit is on building any new, permanent roads.   

The future of these protections now hang in the balance. The current secretary of the USDA made a promise in June of last year to rescind the Forest Service Roadless Rule(Se abre en una ventana nueva). The announcement touts that this change will allow local decision makers to take over management and address wildfire concerns without recognizing that purely local decisions are what gave us seemingly endless, unmaintained miles of roads in the first place, and that roads and related activities are the number one vector for wildfire ignitions. They've got it upside down.

This spring, the Forest Service will take the formal step of releasing a draft Environmental Impact Statement around this intent to drop the rule, giving the public one more shot to speak up for the rule. Otherwise, the agency will revert back to decisions that could have long-lasting impacts on large landscapes enjoyed by millions and critical to keeping key habitats intact and functioning. Even at a time when decisions seem predetermined and rescission seems imminent, the public can and should speak with the same voice that protected these landscapes 25 years ago.

Somewhere, in the not-too-distant future, another 10-year-old child will experience the joy of the quiet, the fear of the unknown, and the wonder of all there is to explore—and that child will have you to thank because you stood up.  

Have your voice and your concerns heard, follow those that are tracking this important rule, and—most importantly—find a tract of roadless forest near you and fill your lungs, your eyes and your heart.